What the heck is up with estimated delivery dates

[orangerx-uk]

2 day handling & RM48 post and eBay are giving delivery dates to buyers before I actually post the package.

Order placed 22/10

2 day handling so theoretical postage date 24/10

eBay delivery estimate: 24 - 25/10

This makes no sense and why I have had 6 INR cases opened in the last two weeks.

Am I missing something here?

[potters_uk]

Unless you provide the delivery service yourself where you control it then eBay nor anyone else on this planet can either guarantee or give an accurate time for a delivery. I've posted items out on 24 hour tracked and it's taken a week to arrive. So in certain cases you get a defect for things that you can not control. Unfortunately eBay haven't yet picked up on how Royal Mail can sometimes behave and it's about time they did. If I guarantee a customer a delivery date and it doesn't happen then fine. Defect me. But don't defect me when it's you making all these promises.

[the_book_seekers]

You haven’t mentioned how you purchase your labels. I’ve read in certain circumstances eBay takes the purchase/creation of a label as the time of postage not when the parcel actually enters the postal system.

[angela-sells-stuff]

Don’t I know it! This order came in at 4 p.m on Monday, well after my 12 noon cut-off : and by Tuesday morning, the buyer was already asking where it was. (It was sitting in a bag waiting to be collected that same day, Tuesday.)

I had same-day dispatch on the listing, with a clear 12 noon cut-off time, yet eBay still told the buyer they might receive it the next day... even though the system knows my cut-off and the postage option selected  was Tracked 48.
What makes it even more frustrating is that I do offer DPD Next Day as one of the postage options , so if they wanted next-day delivery, they could have just paid for that option. Do you think offering this option screws the estimated delivery dates? 

I’ve now changed my handling time to two days and clearly stated the 12 noon cut-off time on the listing. I’m honestly in disbelief that eBay even allowed the buyer to open a case on Tuesday morning.

To top it off, the buyer was such an B*****D in the messages that I just gave them a full refund, then rerouted the parcel to be held for collection at a sorting office on the other side of the city. 

[450-262541]

Check the settings here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf/cutoff

Make sure weekdays only are selected and all the cut-offs are set to 'Not offered'

Not promising it will 100% fix it in your case, because it may depend on other settings too, but it worked for me...

[angela-sells-stuff]

You might have a point there. I'm going to try buying the postage on the day they are actually being dispatched.

[darth_baggins]

It's been like this for ages. Apparently having estimated delivery dates before you even have to post the item is 'working as intended' according to eBay staff because it's all part of the dynamic delivery system which in their eyes can never be wrong, ever.

[lord_and_lady_m]

I often test the working as intended system. On an incognito browser and set a jersey postcode.

Why would any customer ever upgrade to a better service, when apparantly royal mail letter post is the fastest? Even though it will possibly take 2 weeks. SO it's working as intended to over promise to buyers, and cause sellers issues when it doesn't arrive on Monday, the item not received requests open up.

I have 1 working day dispatch so this particular one has a dispatch by 11.59pm on 30th. So if I did dispatch it to a post box at 7pm on 30th, there not way EVER that it will arrive on 31st. As it would still be sat in the postbox to start with, there's no way it'll be delivered on 1st Nov as they don't deliver letters on Saturday, so it's relying on a miracle really? I even took 1st class off as an option, as the dates were always the same as 2nd class, and actually I don't beleive there really is a 1st and 2nd class post any more. 

Still working as intended kat@ebay marco@ebay dave@ebay ???

[mygaras]

I've lost count of the number of times this issue has been raised. The most recent anomaly I shared with the Community Team was that the EDDs were showing buyers that they could expect to receive their (RM48) item on a Sunday. But that's OK, as the system is working as intended.

My latest example (Simple Delivery):

Order placed - 28/10 at 19:47

Item posted RM48 - 29/10 at 09:44

eBay EDD - 30/10 to 31/10

Having posted on the 29th, it might arrive by the 31st, but it definitely won't arrive on the 30th.

To be fair, in my case, this isn't helped by our RM depot occasionally scanning items as 'Collected' rather than 'Despatched'. Unfortunately, this informs eBay that I can perform miracles, and that buyers will receive their item the very moment I've posted it. It even shows up on the order details that the item has been delivered 😂

The EDDs aren't quite as bad on my business account, but perhaps I haven't made enough sales yet for the algorithms to miscalculate! I've always messaged buyers to thank them for their purchase and let them know when they can expect their item to arrive, but I now place more emphasis on politely reminding them to ignore eBay's EDD 😂  We can but keep highlighting the issue.

But I do just love that eBay over promises on our behalf and we appear to under deliver - the perfect business model!